Chapter 21: Need To Talk
I move fast, slipping through the streets with my head down, steps hurried but controlled. The weight of what just happened presses against my skull giving me a splitting headache, each step back toward Cain's mansion is an attempt to outrun the turmoil brewing inside me. I killed him. I didn't lift a blade, didn't throw a punch didn't even move a step. I just raised my hand, and that was it. His heart gave out, the whispers tore him apart destroyed his mind in a second. He was dead before he hit the ground. Because of me.
But he killed his own brother. Lied about it. Lived a life built on that lie. Does that mean what I did was wrong? If I had run my sword through him, people would call it justice?
If I weren't an Elite, I would have never known his sins or fears. He would have passed me by, just another nameless face in a city filled with filth . But because I have power because I could hear what others couldn't I judged him. Decided his fate.
Was that justice? Or I have I already become what I hate the most?
I clench my fists, the thought gnawing at me like a wound left to fester. The moment the whispers fed me his sins, I didn't hesitate. I acted. I was no different than the Inquisitors who revel in control, who hold the people's lives in their hands and squeeze until there's nothing left.
A bitter laugh almost escapes me. Now I grow a conscience?
The other part of me the one that spent years scraping by in the outskirts the dark , watching the worst of humanity rot itself from the inside out—sneers at my hesitation. How many bodies have I walked past? How many times did I turn a blind eye to murder, to starvation, to people tearing each other apart for scraps? I never cared then. Why care now?
Because now, I was the hand that did it.
I let out a slow breath, forcing the tremor from my fingers. Power doesn't change what the world is. It only changes what I am in it. And right now, I don't know if I like what I'm becoming.